Re: antique store: sam & julia
Sam didn't know Cisco. They were like oil and water. Before and after. Sam was Jersey thick as sunshine on streets and Cisco was softer, sharper. He was private, and Julia considered this briefly, flitting across her face before deciding. Privacy mattered but a name wasn't private.
"His name is Cisco. I knew him way back. In New York." And gossip, growing up that had been the thing she hated most. Gossip that chased you around from school to school or chased your pops down because he was one guy bringing up two kids by himself and barely the right side of the law. Now, gossip was like a knife, it could slice. Julia tugged her sleeves further down her wrists as if gossip could see through worn-in plaid. "You don't know him?"
Sam was moving toward the door and Julia had forgotten the cup. She could remember it tomorrow, walking past if the light struck painted blossom in a way that reminded her of trees and light and delicacy. She followed, sunshine sneakers that squeaked a little over the floor and she turned to look around the store a last time in full before letting it go. It stacked secrets and memories - or it could and she'd come back. She'd decided, so she would.
"Do you belong yet?" It wasn't fragile-careful, looking for cracks. Sam had people, but did Repose belong to her the way Cris and Joey did? "I don't mean attached, like it's the place you think of as home. But it's like shore, when the ocean's tossed shit around long enough to leave it be. We're on the shore." She smiled.
And she laughed as Sam screamed, wind-whipped hair and tangled blond and alive and loud, not careful or cautious or moderated. It was living, and Julia gulped on cold air and darkness and laughed as her ribs lifted and her lungs soaked up night and she laughed like she could breathe without the air running out. She didn't feel trapped here, on the corner of the street by Louis's shop of old, unloved things that could be loved again, even if the light folded in on her.
"I'm happy," Julia didn't yell. She didn't scream until the street rang, but it was solid and firm and a promise.